


tidal waves (they rip right through me)

by lovelyflowersinherhair



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-28
Updated: 2019-08-28
Packaged: 2020-09-28 18:31:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,167
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20430506
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lovelyflowersinherhair/pseuds/lovelyflowersinherhair
Summary: The lights in the hospital parking lot were harsh, and they nicely highlighted the bruises that ran a ring around Alice’s neck, like a perverse sort of necklace.





	tidal waves (they rip right through me)

**Author's Note:**

> This is for the daily prompt 'darkness' from southside-archive on discord.

“Do you want to talk about it?” 

“There’s nothing really to talk about, is there? Our son is dead, your son is in a coma, and my prick of a husband tried to pop off me and my daughter because he thought we were sinners.” She lit another cigarette. “Everything I worked for my whole life is ruined. All of the  _ sacrifices _ I made to escape the Southside, to be a decent wife, a decent mother--”

“No one said you were a bad mother,” he offered, with a shrug of his shoulders. “Betty seems to be doing all right for herself.” 

“Yeah, well, that’s one of the three,” she muttered. “Great  _ fucking _ track record I’ve got.” She shivered. “I’m sorry,” she muttered. “You’re the one with the real issues. How is Jughead?” 

“He’ll be all right,” FP said after a moment. The lights in the hospital parking lot were harsh, and they nicely highlighted the bruises that ran a ring around Alice’s neck, like a perverse sort of necklace. The shadows under her eyes matched the gloom of the evening. “He was reckless.” 

“Weren’t we all?” 

“He shouldn’t have done that,” he continued. “It was stupid. He could have died. And that  _ bitch _ doesn’t even care.” He crushed the butt of his cigarette between his fingers, and fumbled for another one. “Where did you get these?” 

“My glove compartment,” she said. “I bought them at the store, same as everyone else.” 

“They’re expensive.” 

“I can afford it. We don’t all have to settle for the dregs of society, Forsythe.” She exhaled, nicotine tinged smoke lingering in the air. “So you spoke to her?” 

“Said that the boy and I could get fucked, and hadn’t she made that clear when I’d gotten myself locked up and he’d dared to want to go to his mother? Then she said if I was out of jail I could take the girl, too, seeing as ‘she keeps screwing up things for me’.” He rolled his eyes. “I didn’t even know that he’d called her, Alice.” 

“Well, if it makes you feel better, Polly’s reaction to her father attempting to murder me and Elizabeth was to first ask me to join that mudslinging cult of hers, and then when I refused she demanded that I send her money. When I asked her what had happened to the blood money she and those twins had gotten for having the misfortune of being Blossoms, she told me that she had spent it on hair ribbons.” 

“You give her the money?” 

“Oh, please,” she said. “She wants to disgrace us by living on a commune, she can be supported by the collective.” 

“I don’t know what we’re going to do,” he said with a sigh, and he ran his hands through his hair. “The trailer park is on fire,” he reported. “And even if it wasn’t it’s certainly not a place to raise someone who’s in a medicated coma and his younger sister,” he sighed. “I sure as hell can’t afford a damn apartment. Hiram Lodge fired me.” 

“He’s a rat bastard,” she muttered. “You’re better off. I’m suing him. Them.” 

“For what? Being pompous asses?”

“For forging my signature on those papers that Harold signed,” she muttered. “I wouldn’t have cared when we were getting divorced, and I was going to get a substantial settlement, but...things change.” 

He watched her scrape her hair into a ponytail. “You sure you’re okay?” 

“I got a full workup done in the ER,” Alice pointed out. “Literally in the examination room beside your son’s. Remember how I threw my credit card at that asshole doctor who implied that you couldn’t afford to pay?” 

“I thought maybe that was a sign that you weren’t in your right mind,” he teased. “I mean, you’d have to be crazy to saddle yourself with me. With us.”

“We take care of our own, FP.” She shrugged her shoulders. “It just so happens that I can do that fiscally, and not using...alternative methods.” She pursed her lips. “I hate myself, so much, you know that, right? I mean. I was so stupid. I just...assumed that he was our son. I took him at his word, like I didn’t study investigative reporting in school.” She sighed. “And worst of all, I involved Elizabeth, and the two of you. For no reason at all.”

“You don’t have to be perfect, Alice,” FP said quietly. “You’re allowed to make mistakes. I know that Hal made you think otherwise, but…” He trailed off. “It’s okay. I don’t blame you.” 

“Thank you, FP,” she whispered. “I think I am more than willing to blame myself enough for us both.” 

“I know,” he said with a sigh. “I’d say that’s something we both have in common, wouldn’t you?” He dared to shift closer to her on the bench, not wanting to startle her. “What did the dickface Sheriff say to you? When he arrested Hal?” 

“He didn’t arrest Hal,” she muttered. “Tom Keller had to. I haven’t seen Sheriff Minetta at all.”

“Seems kinda fucked up to me,” he mused. “That the Sheriff wouldn’t want to take the time to speak to a living victim of the Black Hood’s who wasn’t an obtuse moron?”

“Marmaduke can’t help being dim,” she chastised him. “It was dark out. They were in a car! Otherwise preoccupied!”

“I wasn’t talking about the Mason kid,” he said. “I was talking about Fred and Archie, who lived next door to the man that they were so scared of, and couldn’t be fucked to acknowledge that he and your husband were one and the same. Amazing display of observation skills, isn’t it?”

“They were convinced that his attacker was a Southsider,” she sighed. “Probably because it’s easy to blame us. All you have to do is look at someone the wrong way and you end up getting fucked over.” She rolled her eyes. “You’re probably lucky that you were in jail. At least you couldn’t have it pinned on you. Knowing Fred, he would have.”

“Yeah, well, I’m used to it,” he sighed. “Probably a good thing I left the play, too, after I saw the two of you together.” He sighed, and he reached in the pocket of his jacket to pull out the pink envelope. He pressed it into her hand. “You read that when you’re ready, okay? I just wanted you to have it.”

“You came to the play?”

“You asked me to.”

“Yeah, and I didn’t ask him,” she muttered. “That was Elizabeth’s doing.” She sighed. “It was probably for the best, though,” she admitted. “You would have been the perfect scapegoat.” He watched as she slipped the letter into her purse. “I’ll read it later,” she told him. “We should probably go inside.” 

The night sky had darkened dramatically. It looked like a storm was brewing. 

“You don’t want to head home?” 

She shook her head. “I can’t be in that house by myself. It hurts too much.” 


End file.
